I’m not my vagina. I’m not my vagina. I’m not my vagina. I’m not my vagina.
The mantra pounded heavily through Jen’s being. As she stared intently at Susan, feeling humiliated simply by her current state of being, the delusional state that Kyle had placed her in, the ridiculousness of taking any of it seriously, the knowledge of the one word that she had to say to finish her story… Jen felt like she was burning up. Like she was burning to a crisp under the pressure of it all.
Jen stared. She swallowed harshly, and the pause became too long.
“So, what was it?”, Susan asked, she was clearly hooked by the story. But it was overwhelmingly obvious that this was leading into… something. Something juicy. “What did he say?
Jen chewed on her lip, and slowly shifted her hands down to her vagina. Not consciously, and thankfully not in a way that Susan seemed to pick up on, but she felt uncomfortable, and unable or at least unwilling to continue speaking. The sense of wrongness. The sense of humiliation from even saying the word aloud.
But Susan? Susan was still hooked. So as Jen pulled away, Susan pulled forwards, her face cracking into a grin. “Come on Jen, what was it? You gotta tell me. Seriously, I have no idea where this is going.”
Jen tugged her face into an awkward frown and remained silent. She looked away, towards the floor, and then towards the seat in front of her again. Whatever courage might have compelled her this far was well and truly gone and now all she wanted to do was chicken out. To keep it to herself. To forget about it. To wait until things felt normal again so she never had to admit it out loud. So Susan wouldn’t even know about… about... this.
Susan whined, “Je~en! Come on, tell me! What was it? What’s got you so freaked out? Come on, I just know this has to be juicy. What are you saving this? Are you planning on messing with him layer? And you’re leaving me out of it? Oh come on Jen, share! You know you wanna, just-”
Puppeteering her hands into action once more, Jen reached forward and slapped her hand over her friend’s mouth to shut her up.
“Your lips and mouth. Shut it.”, Jen hissed at Susan. They matched eyes, and Jen could see the shock in her friend’s eyes. The irritation, humiliation, and stubbornness eased slightly inside of Jen at the sight of that. She… was definitely acting out of character, but it was just… stressful. “I’m sorry… look, just… forget about this… for a while and be quiet for the rest of the bus ride, please.”, Jen said, softly as she lifted her hand back off and awkwardly scrunched back.
Curling into her own hips, Jen went back to spacing out with her arms folded around her knees, and her eyes unfocused.
Susan obediently shut her mouth and everything that Jen said simply faded into the recesses of her memories… to resurface eventually, just not now.
But that was not all that was happening to Susan. As she sat there, mildly confused, she felt… strange.
She frowned instinctively. Her head tingled uncomfortably, almost all of it. A strange creeping sensation that seemed to pull towards her mouth.
She squinted her eyes. Something about her vision didn’t feel right… it was just subtly off. Did she need glasses? Her lips parted and she rolled her tongue around and over her two front teeth introspectively. The sounds of the bus around her… there was something off there as well… she swallowed uncomfortably.
Her lips came back together, smacking curiously. She felt… different, but the same. Something was… off, just a little bit. She pursed her lips into a cooing shape and reached up to feel them. Her hands felt… a little closer? It was subtle, very subtle… She gently pushed and prodded at herself for a moment, wondering exactly what felt so off. Things still looked… wrong. She spread her lips and opened her mouth wide.
An instinctive pulse to articulate her thoughts pushed into her, pooling inside of her mouth. It was only barely that she constrained it. She tilted her head to the side, looking towards Jen and pursing her lips tightly. Something was up with Jen, and she had no idea what, but she had a deep sense that she should be quiet right now…
She knew she tended to be a chatterbox from time to time, but this feeling was… odd, and way stronger than usual. Susan blinked awkwardly, and pulled her hand away from poking at her lips. Slowly, and very consciously, she pulled her fingers wider and touched the rest of her face, her cheeks, her eyebrows, her forehead…
Her lips parted slightly, her jaw slightly slackened and her tongue quivering as the tiniest amount of cool air caressed it. Slowly, uncomfortably, a creeping sensation of reality began to seep into her. Her lips pinched close and tight, her tongue slapped onto the roof of her mouth and stuck there.
Her face… it wasn’t numb but… it was… something was wrong with it. Her jaw parted, came together, and parted again, her lips remaining firmly tensed and sealed. She could feel her mouth… in fact, she could feel it way too much, but all the rest? It… It all felt like an afterthought. Although as she moved her hands beyond her face, her head felt massive.
Her lips parted again, then slightly more with a sense of realization. Her vision was just slightly too high up, that’s what it was. Her hearing was similarly askew. Her whole head felt too big. Her mouth closed, her upper lip over her lower lip as she began to chew on it, discomfort and anxiety bubbling up inside of her.
Thoughtlessly, she brought her hand back to her lips and caressed them gently.
And two girls, who were the same, yet different, sat side by side.